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发帖数: 7881 | 1 from NY times：
The history class began with a lesson on being manly.
Lin Wei, 27, one of a handful of male sixth-grade teachers at the No. 1
primary school here, has made a habit of telling stories about warlords who
threw witches into rivers and soldiers who outsmarted Japanese troops. "Men
have special duties," he said. "They have to be brave, protect women and
take responsibility for wrongdoing."
Worried that a shortage of male teachers has produced a generation of timid,
self-centered and effeminate boys, Chinese educators are working to
reinforce traditional gender roles and values in the classroom.
In Zhengzhou, a city on the Yellow River, schools have asked boys to sign
petitions pledging to act like "real men." In Shanghai, principals are
trying boys-only classes with courses like martial arts, computer repair and
physics. In Hangzhou, in eastern China, educators have started a summer
camp called "West Point Boys," complete with taekwondo classes and the motto
, "We bring out the men in boys."
Government officials across China are aggressively recruiting male teachers,
as the Chinese news media warn of a need to "salvage masculinity in schools
." The call for more male-oriented education has prompted a broader debate
about gender equality and social identity at a time when the country's
leaders are seeking to make the labor market more meritocratic.
It also reflects a general anxiety about boys in Chinese society. While boys
outnumber girls as a result of the longstanding one-child policy and a
cultural preference for sons, they consistently lag in academic performance.
Some parents worry about their sons' prospects in an uncertain economy, so
they are putting their hopes in male role models who they believe impart
lessons on assertiveness, courage and sacrifice.
The view that there is an overabundance of female teachers that has had a
negative effect on boys has, perhaps predictably, led to a backlash. Parents
have accused schools of propagating rigid concepts of masculinity and
gender norms, and female educators have denounced efforts to attract more
male teachers with lavish perks as sexist.
In Fuzhou, a city of two million, colleges and universities have come under
fire for relaxing admissions requirements and offering full scholarships and
teaching jobs to young men.
Xue Rongfang, a student at Fujian Normal University, wondered why women
should not get similar benefits to enter traditionally male fields. "If
women go into architecture, shouldn't the government give them a free
education too?" she said. "Why should men get this benefit?"
In some schools, teachers said the large number of female educators,
especially in lower grades, had a positive influence on students.
"We have a more intuitive sense of children's needs," said Li Yue, 36, a
kindergarten teacher in Fuzhou. "It isn't the responsibility of schools to
teach boys to be boys. It's the responsibility of parents."
Chinese education officials, for the most part, appear to disagree. While
men are scarce among the ranks of public schoolteachers worldwide, including
in the United States, the gender imbalance is especially pronounced in
China, where women occupy four out of five teaching positions in urban areas
, according to a 2012 study by Beijing Normal University. China has 15
million teachers and about 270 million students.
In some districts, school officials have pressured local officials to
intervene, saying students are underperforming because they lack male role
models. Boys consistently trail girls on college entrance exams, and
disparities in academic achievement emerge as early as third grade,
according to a 2012 study by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
In recent years, education officials in Fujian, Guangxi and Jiangsu have
created incentives for male teachers, arguing that men bring an energetic
style that appeals to boys.
Still, it is not clear that children derive academic benefits from studying
with teachers of the same sex. A 2008 study of 9,000 11-year-olds in Britain
found no tie between male teachers and higher academic performance among
boys. |
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